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User: currently_awake

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  1. Re:Copyright? on EFF Hints At Lawsuit Against Verizon For Its Stealth Cookies · · Score: 2

    http headers are not art, they are generic templates devoid of artistic content. Your email, however, is most certainly copyrighted and the NSA owes you royalties for their duplication.

  2. Re:Not enough on Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing? · · Score: 1

    The rich opting out of public education (and taking their money with them) is a primary cause of the failure of the US education system. Education spending should be per capita not a fraction of city budget.

  3. Re:Not enough on Free Broadband For NYC Public Housing? · · Score: 1

    Why would you lower standards if you think people are illiterate? Enforce the standards and fail the illiterate.

  4. Re:Baby steps on White House Wants Ideas For "Bootstrapping a Solar System Civilization" · · Score: 1

    We don't need general purpose robots for exploration. We send a mapper robot, then design a robot to explore that environment, then design robots to explore that- it may take decades but that doesn't matter. The only advantage of a human explorer is time.

  5. Re:Economics plays a role here on Researchers Scrambling To Build Ebola-Fighting Robots · · Score: 2

    It would be cheaper to develop a vaccine for ebola then to develop quarantine robots to deal with the effects. The reason this hasn't happened is because we let private companies run our medical system (hospitals, drugs, vaccines) instead of having government do this vital task, and private companies care more about making money than saving lives.

  6. Re:more than I can technically achieve over wirele on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Build a Home Network To Fully Utilize Google Fiber? · · Score: 1

    Run cat5e under the baseboards. Done carefully it's invisible. Or along the roof and paint the cables to match.

  7. Re:What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the go on Eric Schmidt: Anxiety Over US Spying Will "Break the Internet" · · Score: 1

    I'd rather be spied upon by foreigners than my own government because they have less reason to want to harm me.

  8. Re:virtual processor? on DARPA Delving Into the Black Art of Super Secure Software Obfuscation · · Score: 1

    If you need a new processor you may as well just add encryption and local key storage and local memory to an existing processor and let it decode and run the code internally, with all outputs re-encrypted.

  9. Re:What an asshole on The Single Vigilante Behind Facebook's 'Real Name' Crackdown · · Score: 1

    Facebook's assets consist of some servers, some software, and a whole lot of public goodwill. They are not properly executing their fiduciary duty to their shareholders when they devalue their assets.

  10. Re:What about Israel? on Leaked Docs Reveal List of 30 Countries Hacked On Orders of FBI Informant Sabu · · Score: 1

    The sad fact is the government of the USA doesn't have any principles. They always do what's in their short term benefit regardless of long term effects. (ex. the overthrow of the democratic governments of Iran and Iraq, abandoning their ally Syria) So long as Israel can pay off the Americans they upset long enough for them to forget the whole mess the Americans will continue to support them.

  11. Re: Repeat after me on Leaked Docs Reveal List of 30 Countries Hacked On Orders of FBI Informant Sabu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The legal liability issue is interesting. Since these actions are illegal in those (attacked) countries, and since most of them have extradition treaties with the USA that means members of the FBI should be subject to extradition and trial in those other countries just as they would be if they had been caught (and prosecuted) for breaking American law. Only without the US government covering up or just plain ignoring US law. In theory we might actually see the US government held accountable.

  12. Re:How much is that doggy in the window? (song lin on LTE Upgrade Will Let Phones Connect To Nearby Devices Without Towers · · Score: 1

    This could allow you to use your phone while inside a blind spot in the cell network. Instead of deploying a microcell tower to cover half a dozen houses in some valley they could just use this.

  13. Re:How about protecting the public on Piracy Police Chief Calls For State Interference To Stop Internet "Anarchy" · · Score: 1

    This isn't a modern change of affairs. History is filled with the common man rising up against the corrupt noble/lord/king and his professional army. The only times the common man won was when the army was divided AND they had substantial support from some of the rich and powerful.

  14. Re:Really? on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    Molten salt (thermal) batteries handle the day/night/no wind problem effectively, we just need to build it. We should also build nuclear power plants to cover base load instead of coal (the dirtiest source of power in the world).

  15. Re:Really? on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 2

    Germany is massively subsidizing solar. Given they are currently going broke I expect the massive subsidies will eventually go away, resulting in a huge price hike in solar and a long delay while they build cheaper coal or natural gas power plants.

  16. Re:The Banks Own the Government. on The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes · · Score: 1

    Big money owns the politicians, and they run the whole government. So don't be surprised when the system lets the rich do as they please without consequences. It is impossible to fix this without taking the money out of politics, and no politician in the current system will allow that to happen, because then they would have to compete on a level playing field with honest men. And that would mean they wouldn't be in power and able to repay their rich benefactors or get their own piece of the pie.

  17. Re:And thus the balance shifts. on FBI Chief: Apple, Google Phone Encryption Perilous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Police (and the NSA) need to follow the 99% rule. Follow the laws always, except in the 1% case where you have a greater need- like catching that terrorist who plants bombs in our cities. When (not if) the people find out about the 1% law breaking they will accept it, as a rare and justified measure to protect them. When the police systematically break the laws without good cause when the people find out they will lose all respect for all the laws. And once the people don't respect the laws they don't FOLLOW the laws, and the government loses their ability to rule.

  18. Cheap food kills on Irish Girls Win Google Science Fair With Astonishing Crop Yield Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    Lowering the cost of food makes more people starve to death, not less. Poor people tend to make their money from selling food to the middle class. Lower the cost (as happens due to massive American agricultural subsidies) and the poor third world farmers starve because they can't afford to buy the cheap food. The best thing we could do for the third world is raise food prices.

  19. Re:The Global Food Crisis is not a science problem on Irish Girls Win Google Science Fair With Astonishing Crop Yield Breakthrough · · Score: 2

    Ethiopia exports food. It's one of their leading exports, and has been for the entire history of that country. Production of food has never been an issue in Ethiopia, it was always a distribution problem (mostly the government selling food to buy guns and bullets to fight their civil war).

  20. Re:uh oh on US Strikes ISIL Targets In Syria · · Score: 1

    Given how they are deliberately destroying other religious groups and their shrines I doubt hiding in churches is possible. They also appear to object to education and libraries, so I doubt they'll find enough of them to hide in. So now the question is what to do after ISIS disbands. I suggest a Sunni state called North Iraq, with the Bathists as the government. Any end state with the Shiites in charge will mean purges and they've already shown they don't get along.

  21. Re:What am I missing? on Before Using StingRays, Police Must Sign NDA With FBI · · Score: 2

    I don't see how anything a police department does could count as a trade secret, given that everything they do is covered by FOIA laws. I don't see how admitting to spying on people without a warrant could violate their right to privacy.

  22. Re:A little B and E maybe? on Before Using StingRays, Police Must Sign NDA With FBI · · Score: 2

    An IMSI catcher is a cell tower that re-directs to another cell tower. So all traffic to and from your phone goes through it. Voice, meta data, data, email, text messages. Of course they are legally required to get a warrant before they tap your phone, but the rest is probably up for grabs. Assuming they follow the law.

  23. Re:Great on Putin To Discuss Plans For Disconnecting Russia From the Internet · · Score: 1

    Dictatorships trying to firewall the internet == under attack by well funded enemies, who are making progress at stealing their secrets and/or undermining their economy. Maybe the NSA isn't as incompetent as we thought.

  24. Re:Public access on Boeing To Take Space Tourists On Its CST-100 Spacecraft To the ISS · · Score: 2

    And what about the space station? Boeing didn't pay for that, and there are real costs associated with visiting (scrubber modules for the life support, if nothing else).

  25. Re: "CipherShed" on TrueCrypt Gets a New Life, New Name · · Score: 1

    That's why there is an entire occupation devoted to handling legal stuff. I'd tell you the name, but every time I think of it the phrase "first up against the wall" jumps into my mind.